Tales of Void
by TuxedoedCreepersStories
Summary: Follow the story of the Dragonborn and Nightingale Inanis as he traverses Skyrim with his vampire companion Serana, fighting his way through Imperials, Draugr, and bandits in a creative outlook on the world in search of riches and purpose.


**(So before you read this story, I'd like to point out that it has been a** ** _very_** **long time since I've written anything, and that I'm by no means striving to be some sort of really good writer. That being said, my writing probably isn't the best by any means, and ask that criticism be more towards my story rather than how I write. Thanks to any who show interest.**

 **Note: I don't own Skyrim, nor anything associated with it. I am aware that what I'm writing is deviating from the story line of the actual game. There are some aspects I wished to take creative liberties with, and so I did.)**

 ** _Tales of Void: Chapter One_**

As it usually was within the province of Skyrim, the air was almost bitterly cold, even to the Argonian Dragonborn that had been wandering the lands of Skyrim for several years now. The black-scaled lizard was known as many things to various people, but to himself, he was known as Inanis. To most, the name was exactly as it sounded, but to those living within Cyrodil and other Imperial provinces, the name translated, roughly, to simply "Void". To many, this would seem rather foreboding, and with good reason. The Argonian was, first and foremost, an agent of Nocturnal, a Nightingale. Along with this, he was also the serving Guild Master of the Thieves Guild, and the Listener of the Dark Brotherhood. To say that the man was a symbol of darkness would have been an understatement, and it was certainly helped along by his Nightingale armor and black scales.

Currently, the Nightingale was seated within the Bannered Mare within Whiterun, his usual garb of Nightingale armor packed away in the saddlebag of his horse, Shadowmere. Also stored there were his two favored weapons of choice, the blade and bow given to him by Karliah several years ago. Despite coming across daedric weapons and other deadly tools, he had found himself unable to part with the two, finding both to be suiting weapons for an Agent of Nocturnal, and an assassin to boot. What he did have on him, were a set of fine clothes bought in Solitude, an ebony dagger concealed by several folds in the clothing, and a large mass of gold on his person. And at the moment, the Argonian was putting that mass of gold to use, helping himself to the Black-Briar mead that was now the preferred drink within the city.

It seemed so long ago that the lizard had left his home of Black Marsh in order to find something more thrilling to life, and he supposed he hadn't been disappointed. Of course, he didn't much like the start of what had been a long journey of honing his skills. Being caught in that Stormcloak ambush, and having a sword pummel to the skull because of it, wasn't exactly what potential visitors to Skyrim wanted to be greeted with. Of course, now he was _part_ of the Stormcloak ranks, perhaps due to some lasting bitterness of almost being executed over absolutely nothing. _Xenophobic Nords, totalitarian Imperials, and disdainful Elves. What a delightful country this is._ Of course, his time with the Thieves Guild had softened his disdain for what he had hoped would be a good place for a new life. Thanks to the Riften housed organization, his coffers were _far_ from empty these days. And because of his time as a Nightingale and as a member of the Dark Brotherhood, his skills in combat were, so far, unmated. He had even encountered and killed the Dragon Priest known as Krosis and taken his mask as a trophy. Now though, life had started to settle down, though there was always the contract on the Emperor of Tamriel to think about, and about his next potential heist with the Guild.

Shaking his head a bit, the thief tipped his head back and downed another mouthful of the sweetened alcohol in his hand, somewhat craving something with a bit more of bitterness to it. Most inns and taverns now just serve Mavin's brew, but he was always watching for the occasional bottle of Argonian Bloodwine, among other things. He hadn't met many Nords that enjoyed such drinks however, so he supposed it made sense that there wasn't much of a reason for them to keep them around. After all, this was the home of the _Nords_ and certainly nobody else. Snorting at that, the Argonian swiveled in his seat to face the fire and the small crowd inside.

Unlike much of his kind, and perhaps this was a small reason why even his egg-brothers and sisters avoided him, the lizard was somewhat attracted to the soft-skins that Skyrim was filled with. Not that it was that big of an issue, as he had met several odd pairings among his travels, perhaps the most disturbing being a Breton that had betrothed a hagraven. Still, most, when thinking of romance and the sort, didn't really picture one of the hard scaled Argonians eying a Nord or Imperial born woman. _As if it's any of their business anyway._ In the room were several people, some friendly, others not so much. Two of these, oddly enough, were Companions that had come down from their mead hall, Jorrvaskr, to drink and trade stories with the general populace. One of these was the burly Nordic man Farkas, a rugged sort that reminded the Argonian, even somewhat smelled, of a wolf. The woman with him, who also was wearing _far_ less than her armored companion, was Aela, the main huntress of the Companions, and, as far as Inanis could tell, a Nord as well.

The others in the room were part of the usual crowd that could be found in the Bannered Mare, and if there was one thing that Inanis could appreciate, it was a calm, unchanging environment. He had enough action to deal with when he was traveling, whether it be thieving, assassinations, or full out war, and to find the peace of a city, albeit a recovering one, was always welcome. After the Stormcloaks had taken the city, there had been a somewhat uneasy feeling among the city's inhabitants, all wondering if the Imperials would send a counter assault and deal even more damage to Whiterun. As for Inanis, well, he was a Thane here, and worried due to being a Stormcloak, but he had no home threatened here, so he only worried from a combat perspective, rather than from potential personal loss.

Finally pulling himself from his thoughts, the Argonian took a moment to look over the people inside the Bannered Mare. He couldn't help but to feel somewhat sorry for Lydia, for he had tasked her to be his stewards at Lakeview Manor, and so she no longer traveled with him, as he preferred to have her defend his home in his absence. Still, the bard Mikael was still around, despite the rather strong words he had been delivered by Inanis in regards to his womanizing attitude, so there was at least music.

"I don't suppose this is something you do often? You don't exactly seem the bar type to me." These words were spoken by Inanis's newest, and very attractive, companion, the vampire woman known as Serana. After freeing her from her stone prison of Dimhollow Crypt after wandering into its housing cave in search of treasure, he had instead found himself up against vampires and their death hounds, locked in perhaps one of the deadliest fights he had ever found himself in, even worse than his surprise encounter with the Dragon Priest Krosis. Despite having heard rumors of the rising vampire threat and the Dawnguard, the man had never joined, despite a direct invitation from some Orc in an odd set of armor.

"I suppose you're right in that. I'm typically too busy burying my sword in someone's stomach or pickpocketing a noble to relax like this. Still, I do like to relax at times. And the company doesn't hurt." The somewhat hissed reply came as the Argonian raised his bottle in a bit of a toast to his vampire companion. The two had developed an odd friendship, and a rather close one in fact, both feeling rather out of place in a world of striking normalcy. It had taken a bit of weeding, but the lizard had learned of Serana's noble status rather quickly, employing his silver tongue to get information out of her, only to return the favor and go into his own unusual career choices. To say it was an odd pairing would be an understatement, but they'd learned to trust one another during combat, and that was enough for the Nightingale.

Serana was, to say the very least, intrigued by her Argonian companion. Before having been locked away by her mother, she had only met one before, and he had disappeared shortly after coming before their one though, Inanis, was a curiosity to her. She knew of the Thieves Guild and the Dark Brotherhood of course, but the concept of an Agent of Nocturnal had been odd to her, and yet somehow fitting to this follower of the shadows. Despite not having the issues that the vampire did with sunlight, the black-scaled Argonian seemed to gravitate towards shadow and darkness, using it to his advantage at every chance. He was also oddly proficient in close combat, despite his obvious preference for archery, and could only think that the war had forced him to learn such skills equally in order to survive.

To the vampire, such things truthfully mattered little. For all of the questionable traits the man seemed to have, one thing had been made clear to her early on, when she had been freed from Dimhollow Crypt; he was not unkind. He had let her use him to feed in order to regain her strength, and it had certainly been interesting to say the least. Unlike most humanoids, his blood had been, oddly enough, both ice cold and fiery in taste, and had only taken a small amount for her to regain her centuries' long appetite. She could only assume that it was because of his dragon blood. And she couldn't help but be impressed by his story that had taken him through the cave to her; it wasn't every day you found a mortal who could so easily combat vampires, or at least, claim they did so easily. Unknown to Serana, her few words had sparked the same memories in Inanis, though in more detail as the Argonian recalled the events.

 _Dimhollow Crypt, Five Months Prior_

 _Inanis was, above all things, tired of Skyrim's winter. It seemed that, no matter where in this province he went, whether it be up by Winterhold or down by Riften, it was freezing cold. Not always snowing, but always cold. And by the Divines, he was sick of the blasted rain. He didn't know why, but it seemed to have been raining for nearly four days. He was, above all else, grateful for having come across this cavern. For whatever reason, the cave was marked as Dimhollow Crypt on the map, but despite the name, the Argonian didn't care, and welcomed the chance to beat the weather. Without much in the way of hesitation, the Nightingale entered the cave, his blade and shield held ready for any wolves or bandits that could be lurking within._

 _Once inside the shelter of the cave, the Argonian took a moment to let his eyes adjust to the darkness, not for the first time wondering if the Kahjiit had to deal with such petty issues at all, or if they simply had vision already adjusted to both light and dark. Perhaps something to ask one of the caravans the next time he encountered one. Shaking his head clear of such thoughts, the Nightingale, crept through the cavern, until he heard voices ahead of him. Keeping to the shadows, he soon came into a more open area, where, based on their own words, two vampires were gloating over the corpse of a Vigilant of Stendarr. In a way, Inanis could at least sympathize with the kill; the Vigilants, while perhaps having a noble goal, were by far some of the most self-righteous and entitled bastards he'd ever met. It also didn't help that, being an Agent of Nocturnal, he was technically their enemy._

 _Waiting for the two vampires to turn away, and catching something involving 'finding it', the Argonian then put an arrow into each of their backs, both dropping with little more than a hiss of pain as the impacts sent them skidding across the rocky ground. Hesitating to see if anything else would come from its own pool of shadow, Inanis went forward, heading deeper into the cavern before encountering an old iron door. Curious, and hungry for whatever loot they could have found, the Argonian entered the passage._

 _As the Nightingale walked down the passage, he quickly realized something both very strange and very intriguing; he didn't recognize the architecture of this approaching ruin at all. Most Nordic crypts all had a set design, if not a layout, and were easy to distinguish as such. This place however somehow felt much, much older than what even those seemed to be, so much so that his realization at the lack of Draugr came almost right after his notice of the design. Whatever this place was, it wasn't a Nordic burial mound._

 _After several dozen meters of walking in the shadows, and two more dead vampires, the Argonian found himself confronted with a massive, circular chamber, with a large dais-like center. And standing all around it was a group of five vampires, discussing something about a puzzle. Caring little for what they were talking about, at least for now, the shadowy lizard took their distraction, and his stealthy movements, as an advantage, getting two arrows off that found and killed their marks within seconds. Of course, after that, one of the vampires, with some of those lightning reflexes they'd been rumored to have, found where the arrows had come from and sent several ice spikes soaring away, causing Inanis to have to leap from his high ground, and far outwards, somehow making it onto just the very edge of the circular dais._

 _Landing on the edge of the circle, the Argonian turned what would have been a crippling landing into a hard roll, managing to draw his Nightingale blade and get the Pale guard shield off of his back and onto his arm during the roll, deflecting a sword strike from one of the three vampires as he came up to his feet. Despite not technically being a warrior by Nord standards, the Argonian had come a long way since Helgen, honing his skills with the sword and shield combo until he was practically perfect at it, using it devastatingly in most scenarios. This time was no different, as, with the deflection, the Nightingale angled his shield in just the manner to cause the vampire to slip, almost hurling himself directly onto the blade now pierced through his torso and out of his back. Ripping the sword from the dead man, Inanis refocused on the two vampires in front of him. One held a dagger and had his life drain spell ready, while the other had the spell and some sort of ice spell, most likely the spikes from before._

 _After that brief moment of focus and hesitation on both parties, the hostility was started, rather expectedly, by the vampire with the sword, the man doing an anger filled, and very sloppy, overhead strike that left him wide open. Taking the chance, Inanis moved his shield up high, caught the vampire's strike, and slashed his blade horizontally across the man's torso, ripping him open and leaving him to die as he slipping under his arm. Charging in, perhaps faster than the last vampire expected, the Nightingale did something unorthodox, throwing his shield like a disk and connecting with the man's shoulder, throwing him off balance just long enough for Inanis to rush in and drive his sword into his heart. Ripping the blade out of the vampire's chest and picking his shield up, the Argonian turned his attention to the center of the dais, walking towards it, only to be surrounded by purple light._

 _At first startled by the sudden change in lighting, the lizard quickly recovered, no stranger to odd magic, and looked around for something to do. Thinking this may have something to do with the puzzle mentioned by the vampires, he noticed glowing circles on the floor, ends of grooves where there were stone braziers sitting. Having the amused notion that most Nords probably would never figure this out, Inanis pushed the braziers to cover the glowing circles, and once done, noticed a button in the center of it all. Moving towards it and placing his hand on it, the Argonian felt excruciating pain for a moment as a spike shot up into his hand, only to retract a second later with a decent amount of his blood. Before he could really even react, he was met with the vibrations of a stone cylinder rising from the direct center of the dais. Downing a minor healing potion to seal the wound, Inanis cast the bottle aside and drew his sword again, unsure what to expect. He certainly wasn't expecting a Nord woman his age to be inside when the cylinder opened itself._

 _Bannered Mare, Present Day_

The rest after that was really just a blur. After helping Serana out of the crypt, practically having to carry the nearly comatose woman, they had taken shelter underneath an outcropping of rock forming an extremely shallow cave, and it was there that Serana had fed off of him to recover her strength. Since then, the two had been traveling together. Though originally having requested to go home, the vampire had oddly changed her mind, though for what reasons, the Argonian didn't know. He knew that, eventually, their travels would probably take them to her former home, but he had a feeling they may not happen for a while. The woman seemed oddly content traveling with him, despite his less than model dealings within Skyrim.

Which brought them to their current situation. Currently, the two were running a job that somewhat went through the Thieves Guild, but mostly it was a scheme thought of mainly by Inanis himself. Whiterun was only a small piece of things though. Having recently purchased Breezehome within the city, the small house acting as a small getaway if things go wrong. Inanis's two main houses were Proudspire Manor and Lakeview Manor, but with Breezehome available in the middle of Skyrim, it certainly helped as a somewhat base of operations.

At the moment, Inanis and his companion were waiting for Melborn, the Thieves Guild's and Black-Briar's contact within the hold. Melborn had better information regarding things happening in Markarth than what the Guild itself had at the moment, mainly due to just being closer geographically, and because of that, he was who Inanis had reached out to. The idea was simple, if the process itself may not have been; raid the Silver-Blood Treasury in Markarth. It was one thing to snag a bar or two of silver from the city, but the Treasury safe was where all of the good pickings were. It was also, unfortunately, usually guarded by a rather hefty total of guards. Hence where Melborn's anticipated information came in; a way to get past those very guards.

And so now he sat at the bar of a small inn in the center of Skyrim, waiting for information that could potentially help them make one of the biggest scores in both his own personal history and for the Guild, minus the Eye of the Falmer retrieval. Ahead, the future looked about as bright as it could for an Agent for Nocturnal, and that, brought a smile to the Nightingale's face.

 **(So, this is my first chapter of what I will hopefully turn into a decently long story! I know it's not a whole lot plot wise yet, but it was meant to be more prologue in nature rather than jump straight into things. I hope people enjoyed the read!)**


End file.
